[17c] The original will not admit of this rendering, though the sense is not objectionable.
[17d] There is great difficulty here. The word rendered impious, and inserted in brackets, signifies rich, mostly with an accessory notion of violence and wrong; but the parallel clause, “He made his grave with the wicked,” and the further expression, “He was numbered with the transgressors,” in the last verse, seem to justify the sense here given; and so it has been understood by some rabbins and other commentators, as Luther, Calvin, Gesenius. See Matt. xix. 23. We confess we are not satisfied. The common reading that represents Christ as rewarded with a grave among the rich, because, forsooth, he had done no violence, &c., is surely inadmissible.
[18a] So, ‘A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,’ v. 3.
[18b] Intercedes in the present, because his intercession is a continuous act. This distinction of tense as contradistinguished from the past tense in the use of the preceding verb he bore, expressing a transaction once and finally concluded, so conspicuous in the original, is entirely overlooked in the authorized version; so Calvin, Vitringa, Lowth, Henderson, Jones, Barnes, &c. This concurrence in the interpretation of the authorized version is especially to be wondered at in the more recent of the above-named critics. Messrs. Mason and Bernard give, less happily we think, that he might make, &c. Dr. Alexander, New Jersey, favours the view adopted in the amended version. See his admirable Commentary on Isaiah.
[19] A Hebraism lurks here. So, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not ANY of his benefits;” and not “all his benefits,” as our translation has it. So again, “And God gave Cain a mark, lest ANY finding him should kill him,” where the same word is rightly rendered. Ps. ciii. 2; Gen. iv. 15.
[24a] Various divisions, both of the Old and New Testaments, were in use from the earliest period, but the present divisions into Chapters and Verses are ascribed, the former, with some hesitation, to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, about the middle of the thirteenth century; the latter to Robert Stephens, a Frenchmen, about the middle of the sixteenth century. See art. Scripture in Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopædia.
[24b] In an elaborate translation of the whole of this prophecy, in the Hebrew Grammar recently published by Messrs. Mason and Bernard, the authors conceive the opening passage, “Who hath believed our report,” &c., to express the awe and wonder of the kings mentioned in the previous chapter at the events they are supposed to witness, and accordingly they render it, “Who hath believed our hearing” &c., the tidings, that is, that have reached us, the kings aforesaid. But, with all due respect for the translation generally, we are unable to accept this view of the passage before us, conceiving it to be far-fetched, and opposed to the purpose for which, in so many words, it is quoted in the New Testament. See John xii. 37; Rom. x. 16.
[25a] In like manner Jacob, in the course of predicting the future fortunes of his sons, exclaims parenthetically, “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.” Gen. xlix. 18.
[25b] This article has since been republished in a separate form, under the title of the “Present State of the English Bible,” by the Rev. William Harness, A.M. It will well repay repeated perusal by all those who are interested in this pre-eminently interesting question.
[28] Let the reader advert for a moment, in connexion with the argument for the evidences of Christianity, to the ASSUMPTIONS ordinarily and persistently made by Christ in relation to his person and mission, and then conceive of the frightful arrogance involved in these assumptions, supposing them to be unfounded; coupling this thought at the same time with that perfect sobriety of mind and even tenor of a uniformly staid and well-balanced deportment by which he was pre-eminently characterized. We do not find these assumptions in the slightest degree startling or incredible, because they comport in our minds with the WHOLE character of Christ as developed in the gospel. Where the evidence of Messiahship failed among his own countrymen, if there were any failure of evidence, we may advert for the solution, among other considerations, to their blind disregard to the perfect compatibility and harmony of these assumptions with the other features of Messiah as exhibited by Christ. Here are a few of the expressions alluded to, all taken from the earlier chapters of St. John’s Gospel:—